Installment 4: Kyoto Day 1

I didn't know I could be so small. All night on the bus I sat with my knees scrunched up next to my chest, all of me within the bubble of my own (smaller than an airplane seat) bus seat.

...Poor Ryan isn't as teeny as his wife and didn't sleep so comfortably since the chairs don't lean back so far.
So we spent the early morning (from 6am to 9:30am) getting cleaned up at the train station, which was very crowded with women and make up and toothbrushes that time of day, and sitting at Starbuck's.

When Stacey and Jeremy arrived at Kyoto Station we took the JR train line a few stops outside Kyoto station to the stop where it met up with the Sagano Romantic Train line, which gives a slow (and charmingly noisy) view of a winding river.

The walk from JR station to the Sagano Romantic Train Line station. Fresh air and open spac feels crazily free after the cramped bus ride.


The train is a steam engine with wooden seats. It actually stops on some of the bridges over the water so everyone can take pictures. There are tons of tunnels as we follow the river and cut through the hills and the noise is atrocious yet fun.


We get off at the stop for the Bamboo Forest (a site in the recenttly made Memoirs of a Geisha movie) for a nice walk. My favorite part is the 4 or 5 leaning and twisting trees that snake up through the bamboo. They give such perfect contrast for how oddly straight and tall bamboo trees are. As we walked through the bamboo there was a sudden downpour and we ran to buy some umbrellas. Ryan's famous policy of "Of course it didn't rain honey, I brought my umbrella" worked out famously since as soon as we opened our umbrellas the sun came out blazing, both holsters empty. Seriously, if Ryan does drag his umbrella around with him on a rainy day it is doubtless that the day will clear up quickly. Otherwise, rainy days in Chiba usually last for 40 hours...go figure.



This is a famous bridge in the fall. I've seen many pictures of it looking like it's on fire during the last days before winter. Unfortunately, this isn't one of those pictures, but Ryan did a good job taking it don't you think?



We walked to Koryuji, famous for "the most beautiful statue of the buddha." It was kinda cool looking, basically much different from many Japanase images of buddha that we have seen, but we don't have any pictures since there were white-gloved men in the viewing room, making sure we didn't take any. You could just google it...or click here The mossy grounds were nice though too.


We then found some decent food in a coffee shop where one teeny little lady was working by herself. Then we pretty much went to our hostel and passed out.